1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***---*** ĐANG THI UT AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE REALITY OF TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION TO THE 11TH – FORM STUDENTS AT YEN THE HIGH SCHOOL, BAC GIANG PROVINCE (TÌM HIỂU VỀ THỰC TẾ DẠY ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT YÊN THẾ, TỈNH BẮC GIANG) Minor Programme Thesis Field : English Methodology Code : 60. 10 HANOI, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS… .ii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………… .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………. vi LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………. vii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION…………………………….
Statement of the problems…. Aims of the study and research questions………. Scope of the study. Outline of the thesis….
…………3 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………. Reading and reading comprehension…………………. Kinds of reading. The teaching of reading.
Factors in teaching and learning reading. Teacher’s roles in teaching reading……………………………………. Students’ roles in a reading lesson……………………………………. The roles of reading texts…………………………………….
Stages of teaching a reading lesson. Pre- reading stage. While- reading stage. Post- reading stage .3 Some common teaching methods utilized at three stages of a reading lesson10 2.
10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Attitudes and their impacts in teaching and learning. 16 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY. Subjects of the study.
Reading sections in TIENG ANH 11 textbook. Data collection instrument. Questionnaire for teachers. Questionnaire for students.
Post- observation interviews. 19 CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. Findings from Questionnaire for teachers. Findings from Questionnaire for students.
Findings from classroom observation and post-observation interviews. 32 CHAPTER V: LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION. Reading section adaptation. Training different reading skills for students.
Limitations and suggestions for further study. 40 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR TEACHERS AT YTHS .I APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS AT YTHS. V APPENDIX 3: VIETNAMESE VERSION OF QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS VIII APPENDIX 4: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION SHEET. XI APPENDIX 5: POST-OBSERVATION INTERVIEWS.
XIII LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS YTHS: Yen The High School MOET: Ministry of Education and Training VNU- CFL: Vietnam National University, College of Foreign Languages M.A: Master of Arts TALO: Text as a Linguistic Object TAVI: Text as a Vehicle for Information TASP: Text as a Springboard for Production LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Teachers‟ assessment of the reading section in the new TIENG ANH 11 textbook Table 2: Methods used at pre- reading stage Table 3: Methods used at while- reading stage Table 4: Methods used at post- reading stage Table 5: Teachers‟ opinions on the importance of reading text components Table 6: Problems teachers face with in teaching reading Table 7: Students‟ assessment of the reading section in the new TIENG ANH 11 textbook Table 8: Students‟ preference of teaching methods used by the teachers at pre-reading stage Table 9: Students‟ preference of teaching methods used by the teachers at while -reading stage. Table 10: Students‟ preference of teaching methods used by the teachers at post -reading stage Table 11: Problems students face with in learning reading. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problems Being aware of the importance of teaching and learning English in high schools, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has recently introduced a new series of English textbooks for grade 10, grade 11 and grade 12.
These new textbooks have been used in most high schools nationwide. This marks a milestone in improving the quality of English teaching and learning. The new curriculum defines “English as a compulsory subject” to provide students with an “instrument to access world science and technology as well as world culture” (MOET, 2006). However, a lot of complaints have been made by the teachers from most of high schools in Bac Giang province.
They said that these new English textbooks were too difficult for their students. To deal with this problem, Bac Giang Education and Training Department decided to organize training courses at the beginning of the academic years of 2006, 2007 and 2008 to help and give teachers guidance on methods of teaching the new English textbooks based on the communicative approach. Yet, the results were often not satisfactory because it is very difficult for teachers to employ properly the general knowledge of teaching English in communicative approach provided in these training courses in real contexts of teaching at some high schools. Founded in 1966, Yen The High School is one of three high schools in Yen The district, Bac Giang province that have been selected to apply the new textbooks in teaching and learning English.
It has about 33 classes every year, among which, there are about 10 grade 11 classes. As the school is located in the center of a mountainous district, foreign language learning conditions are very limited. Most YTHS students come from comparatively poor families and they do not have much time for self- study. After school, they have to work on farms and rice paddies to help their parents.
Few students are able to attend extra- English classes because their parents cannot afford to pay even a small amount required for their children‟s schooling like the fee, a dictionary, a cassette player or English books. To make matter worse, nearly half of YTHS students are from ethnic groups such as Tay, Nung Dao, Cao lan and San diu, so their ability to learn English is further limited. Considering the teaching conditions, the researcher finds that there is a serious shortage of teaching appliances. There is no cassette player for teachers to use.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 Teachers must read aloud typescript in almost every listening lesson. The results of speaking and writing teaching are far worse. Rarely can students say or write a complete and grammatically correct sentence in English. Instead of developing students‟ communicative ability, teachers sometimes have to change speaking and writing lessons into grammar and vocabulary ones.
Besides, reading lessons seem to be a burden for teachers and boring to students. Within 45 minutes, teachers often cannot help students compete the post-reading sections as most of the time is spent on pre- and while- reading. Students complain that there are too many new words and grammatical structures in a long text, which prevents them from understanding the reading passage thoroughly. In such conditions, teaching and learning English in general and teaching reading in particular according to the new curriculum has actually become a great obstacle for both teachers and students at YTHS.
However, reading has still been the focus of teaching because it is not only an important means to gain knowledge but also the means by which students can obtain more new words and structures used in certain contexts. After looking critically into the reality of teaching and learning reading at YTHS, discussing the topic with colleagues and reflecting on her own teaching experience, the researcher realizes that teaching methods greatly influence the effectiveness of teaching reading skill. Limited success of reading lessons may be due to teachers‟ inflexibility, their lack of teaching experience, intensive employment of the grammar- translation method and the lack of training in the communicative approach. Also, teachers‟ domination in the language classroom should be blamed for.
YTHS students are often passive during English lessons and do not have effective skills in learning reading. As a result, they fail to get the main ideas as well as the details of each reading passage. So as to have a better understanding of the situation and find solutions to the problems her colleagues and herself face with, the researcher decided to investigate the reality of teaching reading to grade 11 students at YTHS. Aims of the study and research questions This study aims: 1.
To find out teachers‟ and students‟ comments on the reading section in TIENG ANH 11 textbook. To investigate the reality of teaching reading to grade 11 students and their attitudes towards the teaching of reading utilized by teachers LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. To identify the difficulties that teachers and students have to cope with when dealing with a reading lesson. It is hoped that the findings of this study will be of some benefits to teachers and students at YTHS and some other schools as the reality of teaching reading at YTHS is similar to that of some high schools in mountainous districts in Bac Giang province like Son Dong, Luc Ngan, Luc Nam, and Tan Yen.
In order to achieve the research study‟s aims, the study attempts to answer the following research questions: 1. How do teachers and students respond to the reading section in TIENG ANH 11 textbook? 2. What methods are used by teachers in teaching reading and what are the students‟ attitudes towards these methods? 3. What difficulties do teachers and students meet when dealing with a reading lesson? 1.
Scope of the study This is a survey of the problems in teaching the reading section in TIENG ANH 11 textbook at YTHS. The study includes an investigation into teaching methods used by teachers and their students‟ attitudes towards these methods. Finding out the teachers‟ and students‟ assessment of the reading section in TIENG ANH 11 textbook and identifying their difficulties in reading lessons are another purpose. Outline of the thesis The thesis consists of five chapters, organized as follows: Chapter One is written to introduce the background to the study and statement of the problems.
It also presents the aims, the research questions, the scope and the design of the thesis. Chapter Two presents a review of related literature which provides the theoretical background for the study. It presents the definitions of reading, reading comprehension, factors and stages in teaching a reading lesson. Some common methods utilized by teachers in three stages of teaching a reading lesson and the impacts of attitudes in teaching and learning are also mentioned.
The final and important part of this chapter is some previous studies. Chapter Three states the methodology used in the study. Therefore, the information about subjects, data collection instruments and procedures are presented. Chapter Four discusses the outcome of the data analysis.
Chapter Five is the conclusion to the thesis. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Reading and reading comprehension 2. Definitions What is reading? Reading is a popular activity of human beings.
It takes place in every aspect of daily life as well as in scientific areas. Therefore, there exist many different points of view on the definition of reading. Goodman (1971:135) defines reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming ”. Another view on reading is shared by Nuttal (1982:4) “Reading is getting a message from a text”.
She states “the meaning is not lying in the text waiting to be passively absorbed; on the contrary, the reading is actively involved and often has to work out to get the meaning out”. It is clear that she rejects the views in which reading is regarded as a rather passive and receptive skill. Grellet (1981:3) also says reading is understood as extracting required information from a written text as efficiently as possible. Besides, according to Harmer J.
(1989:190) reading is “an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message”. Sharing the same view, Smith (1985:102) points out “reading is understanding the author’s thought”.